Local News

Fort Morgan Council approves NISP contract for 2013

Fort Morgan-EagleNet partnership on hold

ByJENNI GRUBBS Times Staff Writer

Posted:
01/17/2013 12:28:12 PM MST

This map shows the proposed locations of Glade Reservoir northwest of Fort Collins and Galeton Reservoir east of Ault and north of Greeley. If permitted and built, these lakes would be the two water storage facilities that would make up the Northern Integration Supply Project (NISP). Fort Morgan is one of 14 municipalities and counties supporting NISP. (Map courtesy of Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District)

The Fort Morgan City Council on Tuesday night approved spending $90,000 in 2013 on preparatory work for the Northern Integrated Supply Project (NISP).

The 2013 contract marked the eighth such agreement the city has signed with the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District to help pay for work that could lead to NISP, a massive water storage project to be built as two reservoirs.

If everything falls into place, Galeton Reservoir would be built east of Ault and Eaton near Highway 14, and Glade Reservoir would be built north and west of Fort Collins.

Fort Morgan, which is one of 14 Colorado participants in NISP, is in for 9 percent of the project -- and the 3,600 acre-feet of water storage space it would create for the city.

"As we've continued our involvement in the NISP project, we come to stages where we basically have to agree . . . with the goals that the NISP project has in front of it for the year and what the city of Fort Morgan has obligated to spend for that year," Nation explained.

The city's payment for the upcoming year "authorizes the services Northern will perform on our behalf to continue the NISP project toward the goal of getting it permitted," he said.

Nation told the council that he had attended a meeting with Northern representatives on Monday, where he received an update on the project.

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"They continue to move forward with trying to get the permit portion of the project done," he said.

That permitting process had already involved "exhaustive studies," but there was still more to be done before a final decision would be made, Nation told the council.

"As part of that, they continue to do sometimes it seems like exhaustive studies and technical reports for the federal government at this point in order to get (through) the permit process," Nation said. "They're continuing to produce those technical reports."

Those studies involved providing the federal government with responses to the various concerns expressed by environmental and property-rights groups, among other interested parties.

The studies "went down to the level of examining the various rocks on the bottom of the Poudre River," Nation said. "They're doing different type of sedimentation analysis to determine if they build this project, just what type of effects it will have on the Poudre River. This is the type of analysis you're now seeing."

Nation did say that Northern had said the hope was "to have those technical reports done" in the next couple of months and then move on to get some type of approval yet this year to keep the project moving forward.

The council also approved a resolution authorizing the cancellation of temporary use permits and application for beneficial use of new Colorado-Big Thompson water shares purchased in 2012.

Nation called this a "housekeeping" measure.

He explained that "any time we purchase any units of the C-BT system, they go into kind of a temporary contract, until we get to the end of the year, and Northern then has us apply those to their specific contract that applies to the city of Fort Morgan and all municipalities that have ownership within the Northern system."

He said the resolution the council passed was "standard" and spelled out the conversion of the three separate water purchases in 2012.

"We go through this every year," Nation said.

EagleNet

City Manager Jeff Wells told the council that the city's participation in the EagleNet project by allowing use of the city's fiber network was on hold for the time being.

EagleNet was designed by the state legislature to have public-private partnerships to bring high-speed Internet to every public school in Colorado to build a comprehensive, statewide network.

"We've been working with EagleNet in the past," Wells said. "Some things came up in the press, some criticism."

Specifically, area businesses complained in letters to the editor in The Fort Morgan Times about how it would hurt their businesses to have a publicly funded entity "overbuilding" existing telecommunications networks, instead of working with rural telecommunications providers.

U.S. Rep. Cory Gardner, R-CD-4, also jumped into the fray on this issue, siding with the businesses against Eagle-Net in Morgan County, specifically in Fort Morgan and Wiggins.

"This is an issue that was originally brought to the attention of my office by local business owners and employees who are concerned that they are being pushed out of business by government-funded activities taking place in areas never intended," Gardner wrote in an opinion piece in The Times on Oct. 20, 2012. "These providers employ local people who in turn pay taxes that fund the schools and libraries."

Wells said that the city should take some time before taking further action on supporting EagleNet.

"I think we're going to tread lightly," he said. "We're waiting until all of those situations are resolved. We don't want to bring something into the community until we're sure we're on solid ground."

Other action

The council also:

Heard from Wayne Johnson of MediaLogic Radio that the Christmas Capital of the Plains promotion "exceeded our expectation." MediaLogic was the originator and one of several participants in the promotion, which also included The Times. "We're going to do it again next year," Johnson said, thanking the city council for its support of the events, activities and promotions for businesses and groups in Fort Morgan before Christmas.